Wow...
I have been involved in fandom since... oh, maybe fifth grade or so? But even though it's been a long time, almost a decade now, I was never involved in anything as bugfuck crazy as what I found out about what happened in old Harry Potter fandom.

Seriously, this is like a television drama or a movie in the way it's so... batshit. The MsScribe story is a fascinating look into Harry Potter fandom's history, including the absolute lunacy of some of it's big name fans back in the early 2000s. The whole thing started over a fight about pairings, and whose pairing was going to become canon. Let me just say that i've never been more relieved to be primarily a slash fan then I have as I read this account. Stalking, angry emails, hacker attacks, threats of litigation.. apparently fandom was serious business back in the day, enough so that people were willing to cause real-life harm to the people who they were arguing with.

And then MsScribe showed up and things got really, really weird. Even as I read this I can't help but wonder about this woman's state of mind. It's generally accepted that she was an extremely dedicated troll, but holy shit, I can't imagine keeping up a troll persona for years. Maybe I'm just lazy, but dear god. Someone should make this into a television drama, I would watch the hell out of it. It's like Gossip Girl, only with a whole bunch of grown-ass adults that should know better than to behave like a bunch of bratty kids. For something spawned from a group called “Harry Potter for Grown-Ups” it seems woefully lacking in, well, grown-ups.

Just... wow. Even if you're not really interested in fandom, this is worth reading. All of this happened before my time, but it's a useful cautionary tale for what happens when things get out of control in fandom. I have, unfortunately, seen some of the fandoms I like to read in starting to go down the wank path (although not so much with regards to pairings), and given the current climate on some of the more popular websites, I have a feeling that we could end up with MsScribe 2.0 on our hands here if we're not careful. Already I've seen some things happening with the vaporware video game project that shall not be named.

Anyway. They say that those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it, and I am a bit frightened that such a thing may be happening again, only with less ship wars and more politics.